User profile: Yuanyangren

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Forums > Living in Kunming > Is living in China hazardous to your health?

Hmm...I don't find China noisy at all. Sure, there are many impatient drivers who constantly blast their horns, but the lack of motorcycles, mopeds and inconsiderate idiots that blast their stereos at 5am is a sure sign China is a lot quieter than neighboring Vietnam and Thailand, where people are seemingly oblivious to all that noise.

Unless you are used to living in North Dakota or something, Kunming and China in general are quiet enough; it's rarely noisy in a housing estate where most people live.

Try Vietnam for a while...it's absolutely horrible. The people get up at 5am (to do what?!), they blast their stereos with good morning Vietnam banter, some horrible music, whizz past on their scooters and mopeds all day long (hardly any Vietnamese own cars), the trucks in Vietnam have the craziest horns in the world and the whole place stays noisy until about 9 or 10pm at night. It doesn't necessarily become quiet at night either, just quieter. China is much more civilized by comparison.

Air pollution? Well, Kunming's air quality seems OK to me; I don't think the air quality in Ho Chi Minh City with it's 11 million mopeds could be any better than that of Kunming. Just some food for thought.

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Forums > Living in Kunming > Problems with China Eastern Airlines

Which is why it's usually worth paying a bit extra to fly with a reliable airline! Airline safety is not an issue to play around with, so some careful consideration about who you are flying with and their standards of service makes a HUGE difference. I personally only fly with Star Alliance carriers and a few others and I never make any exceptions for any reasons. For example, flying THAI between Kunming and Bangkok and Bangkok and Ho Chi Minh City is always worth it. I will never fly Air Asia because firstly, their ticket prices are often not any cheaper than THAI and once you add on the extra baggage charges, it may even be more expensive than THAI! Also, I have been able to fly for free many times even business class with THAI a privelege you won't get with Air Asia.

While I think that China Eastern is a perfectly safe airline to fly with and I found their service to be OK (on domestic flights; I have never flown with them internationally), why don't you just fly with say, Cathay Pacific? They offer very cheap flights via Hong Kong from Kunming to Toronto and Vancouver.

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Forums > Travel Yunnan > Renting a car to see Yunnan independently

I've also been to Dongchuan numerous times always by car...takes about 2.5-3 hours, god knows how many by bus. Driving yourself (or with a driver if necessary) will allow you to see as much as possible in as short a time as possible. 2 weeks in Yunnan just using land-based public transport is possible, but it won't allow you to see everything - you'll either need more time or your own transport...Yunnan is quite a big province and away from the expressways it takes a long time to get anywhere.

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Some airlines, particularly international ones like THAI have not updated their systems to reflect the new airport. At the beginning, starting tomorrow, I'm sure there will be some passengers that won't know about the change and will thus go to the wrong airport and miss their flights.

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Yeah the Lijiang line is currently under construction, while the Ruili line is supposed to form part of a proposed Kunming-Myanmar rail link - it will probably also be constructed at some stage (as reported by GoKM last year) but I suspect it will take a little while.

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All of this is quite amazing, but even in China not everything goes to plan. Originally the proposed high speed railway from Kunming to Vientiane, Laos via Jinghong and Boten was supposed to be completed by 2015, but a number of issues will likely push back that project for another 10 or more years, though I do believe that it will eventually be built. Also, since the idea is to link south-western China with the south-east Asian coast, Thai and eventually Malaysian and Singaporean co-operation is vital to building this link in the first place; building a line only as far as Vientiane would likely turn out to be a white elephant project since the objective is to make most income from moving goods between SE Asia and SW China quickly via train rather than passengers and that requires linking SW China to a coastline - something which Laos doesn't have.

Regarding the Hekou line, they've been proposing that one for years now since trains stopped running between Kunming and Hekou in 2002. Finally this article mentions a new high-speed line is under construction, but this will be of little use unless the Vietnamese also build a complementary high-speed line on their side (sure, they already have an existing railway line running from Lao Cai via Hanoi down to Saigon, but it's rather slow). Also, the Vietnamese government recently turned down a proposal for converting their existing line into a high-speed line, citing the high cost and the low passenger volumes that would utilize the line.

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Wow, it's finally upon us. The new airport will finally open at the end of this month! Only thing is, I'd avoid non-essential travel in and out of this airport for the first couple of weeks since it will probably be more chaotic than usual and things may not go as planned (for example baggage claim may be unusually slow).

I like the statement "For travelers without cars, taxis are always an option." well of course they are. For starters, most people in Kunming still don't own a car despite all the cars on the roads these days. Secondly, even if you do have a car, who would drive to the airport in order to catch a flight and then park their car for the duration of their overseas or interprovincial stay there? I don't think long-term parking is well known in China so even a week's worth of parking could become very expensive and possibly more expensive than even in some western countries.

I am looking forward to the proposed direct Europe flights. Anyone have any idea about when these flights might begin and who which carriers will offer service (presumably Chinese carriers I would imagine)?

Reviews

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Horrible tasteless, thick-crusted "cardboard" like pizzas that are a far cry from what they should be like. Way overpriced too. Wine may be good, but why bother when the nearby Prague Cafe makes much better pizza at a more reasonable price?

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Great Mexican food and ice cream, excellent Raspberry smoothies and an overall good atmosphere. Can't do much about the low ceilings on the second floor, but the early closing time could be adjusted, after all, the nearby French Cafe closes at 1am.